San Francisco bike lane and right turn collision

Last Monday, a truck driver made an illegal right turn from Market Street at Octavia and seriously injured a bicyclist who was in the bike lane to the right of the truck. These illegal right turns occur frequently enough at that an ABC 7 news crew at the scene filming some background footage happened to catch a hit-and-run on video.

Some commenters wonder why the turn is illegal, since it seems an like an obvious place to get on the freeway. If a road is engineered for a certain activity, it does not matter how many signs and prohibitions are in place; drivers will drive to the engineering, not the signs.

I've been nearly hooked at this intersection and take the lane here. Perhaps the city, motorists and cyclists would all be better served if the bike lane was removed entirely at this location.

IMPORTANT: Please post comments for this article at the new CYCLELICIOUS 2.0 version of this page.

Comments:

The problem with removing the bike lane and having bicyclists take the lane instead is that the vast majority of bicyclists won't take the lane and the same crash will occur. Only without the bike lane/sharrow/ or some clearly marked onroad bicycle facility liability for the crash will be murky. It's a wicked problem without a clean solution.